


the dark and the stained glass watchers

by peachcitt



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: (specifically catholicism), Confessional, First Kiss, First Meetings, Hannigram - Freeform, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, M/M, One Shot, POV Third Person Limited, Priest Will Graham, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, also shoutout to me. for being drunk when i started this, and steinbeck goes off on how everything's holy, inspired by Fleabag, shoutout to grapes of wrath and the specific paragraph where a guy gets drunk, this is the horniest thing ive ever written without it being actual porn, this user was raised catholic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachcitt/pseuds/peachcitt
Summary: "Tell me what you're thinking," Hannibal said, and Will tilted his head back to stare up at the wooden ceiling of the confessional, so close to his head. He could close his eyes and picture the night, the stars, the heavens, but he kept his eyes open. He stared at the grain, the pattern of the wood."I'm thinking," Will said softly, "that I have doubts."orforgive me father, for i have sinned
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	the dark and the stained glass watchers

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy :)

Will Graham believed in the Devil. In Heaven, in God. He believed in these things so vehemently, he wrapped himself around these things, wrapping himself so tight most of himself disappeared until he was only made of the divine. Only made of the blood he consumed made of wine, of the flesh made of bread. God was merciful, but He was vengeful, too, because Will Graham had made many a mistake, and he was paying for it now with his life.

With his profession.

With a dilapidated church with few visitors and excess wine Will could lose himself a little more in.

Not that he had a drinking problem, of course. It was only communion with God, with God and the heavens and the clouds and everything else. And when he was sitting alone in the pews, staring up at the crucifix and the son of God in agony hanging above him, divine alcohol making ruckus in his stomach and throat and head, he would ask questions.

He didn't know how he got here, in this lonely stone building with the stained glass sufferings crying down around him. But he was here all the same, and he wondered. If this was where he should be, if he was making a big enough impact, if he was doing what God wanted him to.

God didn't answer - He never really did. He spoke in mysterious ways, mysterious ways that Will wasn't sure if he could decipher anymore.

\---

Until Hannibal Lecter. 

Hannibal Lecter was a sign, Will was sure of it. Hannibal was a sign, with his overly tailored suits and perfect hair and smooth words and gentle smiles. He was something sent from God, but the meaning was soft and fuzzy in Will's brain, as everything was. For the first time, Will wanted to know this message, he wanted to find out every intricacy of this message that God and the universe had to offer. Will believed, with all of his heart, despite everything, that this was all part of God's plan, and so even when something unholy stirred in the pit of his stomach when Hannibal introduced himself after mass, his eyes trailing over Will's robes and unshaven face as if that was something worth looking at, Will trusted that feeling.

He trusted God, and he trusted Hannibal Lecter.

Still it was only natural for the human being inside of him, apart from the divine, to fight against His will. And so, even with his calling, even with his robes and his planned words spoken in front of an alter and the image of his wailing savior carved in stone haunting behind him, he simply smiled at Hannibal that first Sunday. He just smiled. He didn't ask any questions, even though he knew God was there, looming over his shoulder, and his stomach was there, pushing up to his throat and wanting to ask. He asked nothing, and he wished Hannibal a splendid afternoon. 

And Hannibal had smiled in return, a small twitch of the lips that made Will wonder if it was truly God looming over his shoulder or if it was something else. He was only human after all. No amount of consumption of the holy or proximity to the blessed wood of Jerusalem would change that fact. He was, after all, only human.

\---

Will never truly locked the doors of the church. This was a small town, and he knew most of the residents. And, of course, there was a deputy from the town police that watched the doors of the chapel just in case. Teens were teens, after all.

But this night saw no teens. It simply saw Will again, sitting in the pew directly in front of the alter, in front of the crucifix. Truth be told, he had perhaps drunk a little too much of the blood of Christ. He didn't really think that was a big deal. He wasn't a sloppy drunk or a violent drunk, just a thoughtful one.

He saw Hannibal again this night. He was at his weakest now, drunken on something just left of his faith and full of thought and question and doubt. Strangely, he wondered if Hannibal knew this. He couldn't - it would be impossible. But perhaps Hannibal was full of a different sort of thing, a different sort of calling that filled his bones and whispered and sang instructions to him until he raised his foot and obeyed them. Stranger things had happened before the eyes of God, Will was sure of it.

"Father," Hannibal greeted, sitting beside him. Will was staring up at the crucifix, and so was Hannibal, but will could hear the smile in his voice, his voice as smooth as communal wine, as the words of God that rolled off his tongue every day. "It's very late, you know."

"I live on the premises," Will replied. He glanced at Hannibal. Not enough to see him, just enough for him to know that he was looking. "Have you come here to pray?"

"Amongst other things," Hannibal said, and Will nodded.

It wasn't entirely uncommon, to see residents of the town come here to think, to pray, to have a place to simply sit when nowhere else was good enough. Sacred enough. This house of God that Will lived in was a place for many, not just himself. He didn't mind. He had spent many nights kneeling beside a friend, an acquaintance, a stranger. He wasn't sure how to categorize Hannibal just yet. Maybe he wouldn't know at all.

"This place," Hannibal said, words quiet and yet still echoing throughout the whole chapel. "It's quite small."

Will couldn't help but laugh. "God is the humble sort, you know," he said, and his eyes were drawn to the crucifix, to the suffering. Humble penance for crimes never committed.

"I know," Hannibal replied, and there was that smile again, there hiding behind his words. Like he was sharing something small with Will that Will had already taken. Will looked down at his hands, wondering if he would find the source of Hannibal's smile there, among the lines on his palms or the veins twisting underneath his skin. "Although one may not come to this conclusion upon witnessing the massive cathedrals in Italy - Rome. They are quite impressive. Quite beautiful."

"Sorry this place isn't Rome." It was far away from Rome. No sense of grandeur or ancient beauty like the painted holy chapels Will had only seen in pictures. And yet, even in pictures, he could understand why people who didn't even believe in God, in all the things that came with Him, ran in flocks to visit the sites, like some remnant of ancient divinity was there in the marble, in the paint chips clinging to the ceiling. Those places were so holy, even the ignorant could feel it, the quiet power. This place was not that.

"It isn't, but places are not as set in stone as we might believe them to be." Will looked over at Hannibal then, let himself look at him as he hadn't the past few times he'd come on previous Sundays. 

"What do you mean?"

Hannibal's eyes stayed on the crucifix, eyes shining as if a star had bounced off his iris and a piece of it had been broken and left there. "We are all God's things, all made of the same materials as everything else. There is a piece of Rome here, and there is a piece of here in Rome. The divinity does not lie in the place, but rather in the hands that shaped the place."

"Construction workers and artists that died hundreds of years ago made Rome," Will said, and Hannibal turned his eyes on him. A tumbling sort of feeling fell upon Will's stomach. "The company down the road made this one."

"Aren't the hands of God's people holy? Aren't the thoughts born from their brains pieces of the clay that He shaped, breathed life into?" Hannibal smiled at him, and an image of great celestial hands smoothing out the lines of Hannibal's face came to Will, index finger and thumb pinching out the bridge of his nose, fingernail tracing the crow's feet by his eyes, palms running over cheeks and fingers tracing over lips. "Tell me, Father, do you believe these things to be holy?"

The silence was between them, folding itself up, shortening the distance. Will smiled. "Perhaps you should be the priest among the two of us."

Hannibal smiled.

\---

There were many times Will saw Hannibal - saw Hannibal and wondered over the message hidden behind his eyes, behind his lips, behind his teeth. In between his strands of hair and underneath his ties and the buttons of his suits. During mass, after mass. During community events, and alone at night among the silence and the pews and the suffering of the Messiah. There was a message, and Will was close to it. He could feel it every time Hannibal smiled at him, every time he spoke his theories on holiness and togetherness and God and everything else. There was a message in his words, yes, but there was a message in the way he looked at Will, too. In the way Will's heart reached out, in the way his breath evened and shortened. There was something here, something as easy and as hard as living and belief.

It was a night, much like the first time Hannibal and Will had spoken in the chapel in the dark. Will had been communing with God through the wine, through holy blood, only a step away from gore and ugliness because of his whispered blessings and fluttering beliefs. And Hannibal had come. And they had talked.

"There is something troubling you tonight, Father," Hannibal had said, and Will had laughed.

"You call me Father," Will said, and Hannibal had looked at him like they were sharing a joke. "You call me Father but I do not think you look at me like a Father at all."

"Perhaps not," Hannibal had said, because he was always honest with Will. They were in a church after all. The son of God was looking at him, him and the holy Virgin and all of the saints depicted in glass shards of green and blue and yellow and red. "But, forgive me if I am being too presumptuous, there is something more happening in the recesses of your mind, Father. I wonder if you'd let me in on your thoughts and troubles."

"You wonder," Will said with something that could have been a laugh. Hannibal gave him that smile, the one that made God seem close and far away at the same time, that made the stained glass saints look away.

"Come with me," Hannibal said.

"Where?"

But he stood when Hannibal did anyway, and he followed. He followed the message, and he followed the reachings of his heart.

And Hannibal led him to the confessional booth.

Will raised his eyebrows. "Are you going to confess your sins to me, Hannibal?"

"I have no sins I feel I have to confess," Hannibal said with a shrug, his words full of that smile, of that gentleness. "But perhaps you will speak to me. If I am behind a screen, if you believe you are confessing."

"You're not a priest," Will said as Hannibal stepped into the priest side of the booth.

"Am I not holy?" Hannibal asked, and he closed the door.

Sighing, Will stepped into the confessor's side of the booth, sitting down on the old, creaking wood. He glanced once at the screen between them. He could see Hannibal's silhouette, faintly. They were quiet for a moment.

"I'm not going to call you 'Father,'" Will said.

A small laugh slipped into the air, traveling through the screen between them to caress Will's ear. "I wouldn't want you to, Will."

A shock ran down Will's spine. He suddenly wished that there wasn't a screen between them. He wondered why he wished that. 

"Tell me what you're thinking," Hannibal said, and Will tilted his head back to stare up at the wooden ceiling of the confessional, so close to his head. He could close his eyes and picture the night, the stars, the heavens, but he kept his eyes open. He stared at the grain, the pattern of the wood.

"I'm thinking," Will said softly, "that I have doubts."

Hannibal was quiet, but Will could see, out of the corner of his eye, the shape of the lines of his face. The intricacies of his expression were hidden to him, but Will could feel the open curiosity and care in the air between them.

"There was a time when I was close to God, close to Him and His word," Will continued, speaking up at the wood above him, at the paper screen between them. "I could read passages in front of His flock, and I would believe it, with everything that I am. I became what I am because I believed Him. I believed Him and everything He had planned for me, for this church, for the people I know, for the people I don't know."

"And now?"

"And now," Will said, and he closed his eyes. He didn't imagine the heavens or the night sky or even the stars. "I put on these robes, and I wonder where I found that divinity from. I speak the holy words and wonder if they're just words. I see the people with questions, asking for God, and I only see the sadness on their cheeks, not the piece of Him I could see before. I drink the communal wine to see if I can be close to Him, but he has never felt more far away. And I wonder..." He trailed off, opening his eyes. And there was the wood, above him. There was the screen. The silhouette of Hannibal's God-sculpted face. "I wonder if God has left me. Left me to decipher His messages and His teaching as if I am covering my eyes and stumbling in the dark. Left me here, alone."

"Doubt can be a very integral part of any faith," came Hannibal's reply, only a short moment later. "Your God and your holy text have many instances of men doubting their God. It is not a shameful thing to doubt the things that you cannot see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. You are simply Peter in this moment of your life, turning your head away just for the moment - three moments. When it is time, perhaps you will find your faith again, and you will laugh or shed many a tear for your moments of doubt, just as Peter did."

Will lowered his head. "I feel less like Peter and more like..." He trailed off, took a breath. "I feel as though I'm Judas."

For a long moment, Hannibal said nothing. Will closed his eyes again - there was no God or answers in the dark behind his eyelids, but there was quiet there. 

"In that case, then I must recommend the common remedy of the church," Hannibal finally said, and there was something quiet in his voice, almost like the quiet of the dark behind Will's eyelids.

"What is it, then?" Will asked, feeling the edges of his mouth pull up into something that could've been a smile. "An Apostle's Creed, a Hail Mary, a smattering of Our Father's? Perhaps a Glory Be, a Hail Holy Queen?"

"Get on your knees."

Something in Will caught.

"What?"

"Get on your knees, Will," Hannibal said, that dark there in his voice, and there was the message, so close to being discovered. "Kneel."

And it didn't even occur to Will to argue, to wonder. He knelt. This was God's will, or something just as strong.

And then the curtain to the confessional was being pulled back, and Hannibal was there, standing above him. There was stained glass behind him, framing him in its nighttime colors. And Will felt that the Heavens were close, bearing down on his lungs. And He was there, behind his eyes, behind his lips, behind his teeth.

Hannibal got down on his knees, there in front of Will. His eyes were heavy, his breath close.

"Are we going to pray?" Will asked, voice quiet and loud all at once.

Hannibal leaned forward. Will found himself leaning forward, too. 

"There are many ways to pray, Will."

And Will could see Hannibal's gentle words pull up at the corners of his lips, his lips that were connecting with Will's. And Will closed his eyes, an unconscious motion, but the images continued behind his eyelids, celestial hands and lips and teeth and throat. 

And Will could hear his breath and his blood, loud in his own ears. Hannibal's breath was roaring, too, and Will was swallowing down the sound with his own lips, pressing his hand to Hannibal's chest and feeling the cantankerous thump of a heart alive and pounding and shouting.

And Will could smell Hannibal's aftershave, something far more expensive than Will's own, mixing in with the smell of candle wax burned to the wick and the incense crawling through the air, from the alter and the humble and suffering crucifix to them. 

And Will could feel his hands tracing hard lines through Hannibal's hair, searching and grabbing and pushing and pulling. He could feel Hannibal's thumb, drawing a smooth, gentle line over his cheekbone, as if he was writing something sacred there, just beneath his eye. His other hand fisted in his robe, pads of his fingers pressing hot over the fabric to reach his skin, burning him, branding him.

And Will could taste Hannibal's tongue and teeth, gums and throat, intestines and organs. And he tasted like frankincense. He tasted like gold, He tasted like myrrh. He tasted like the bread, the flesh, the wine, the blood. 

Hannibal pulled away, only enough to run his nose alone Will's cheek and press a kiss underneath his jaw. "Tell me, what do you feel?"

"I don't know," Will said, breath hard and knees screaming, "I don't know." 

"Is it God?" Hannibal's teeth tore against Will's skin. "Is it me?" Soothed with a brush of his lips.

 _"Yes,"_ Will said, and got up off his knees, pulling Hannibal up with him, and he crashed their lips together again. And he could feel it, the saints and the Messiah watching over him, their eyes burning. He could feel God, too, when he pressed Hannibal against the confessional booth, when Hannibal dug his teeth into Will's bottom lip. 

It felt violent, almost, this tugging, this pushing, this pulling, this divinity. It was hidden, behind the dark and the stained glass watchers.

And it was holy.

It was holy.

**Author's Note:**

> in my defense, i was left unattended. 
> 
> i cut my own bangs last night, and tonight i maybe got a little drunk and watched fleabag (the last three episodes of s2. if you know fleabag then you may notice this is heavily inspired by the confessional scene). i started this when i was still a little drunk. i may still be drunk, im not really sure. if there's any typos please know i cannot control that right now thank u
> 
> if you can't tell, im having the time of my life.
> 
> i finished hannibal for the first time a couple days ago and got real mad they didn't make out so here, have a weird blasphemy make out session. i would apologize except im not going to
> 
> come find me on tumblr/twitter @peachcitt thank you for reading ily


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